ILLI AND US _They and Us, Solo Exhibition by Roger Sanguino.

DDR Art Gallery Exhibition Program.

Roger Sanguino's solo exhibition, ILLI ET NOS, _Them and Us_

From March 3 to 31, 2025.

The set of paintings that make up the exhibition comprises three thematic axes that revolve around the portrait:

“We Are a Number,” “Portrait and Geometry,” and “Sheltered Portrait,” taking into account issues such as identity, urban space, relationships with others, and time.

The characters portrayed in the works that make up the exhibition emerge from the observations and notes I make of the urban space I transit daily, of which I also take into account the geometry in the existing one, which at the same time is present in the space we inhabit.

As we move through urban space, interacting or socializing with others, we encounter resources or mechanisms as ways to approach the identity of others, to recognize them, recognize ourselves, identify them, or identify ourselves. We can all be them, and they can be us, because we are all part of that urban environment, in which we observe others and in which we are observed.

On the previously painted portraits, I incorporate different steel resources with which I reinforce their formalization.

These steel solutions (a kind of three-dimensional drawing) appear subservient or floating, complementing the pictorial surface. But steel also serves another function: it ultimately shapes each work at the moment the flash of light characteristic of this material appears, a luminous effect that moves as we move from one end to the other while contemplating the image. The blend of different technical processes gives rise to an image that is halfway between painting and sculpture, both disciplines coexisting on the same surface.

Portrait preserved.

The 2020 pandemic brought about a change in our lives, generating a forced isolation in which socializing with others was limited exclusively to those closest to us.

With lockdown measures relaxed, we ventured out into urban spaces, maintaining limited and distanced contact with others. Then a device emerged as the centerpiece: the mask, a resource that served to protect us, but also disrupted everyone's identity.

In the midst of confinement, and immersed in this constant search in my work, I began to explore the possibilities of steel, such as nets, which I incorporated into the image at a certain point. In this process, chance played a decisive role. By placing the net over the portrait, the identity of the subject was modified, altered.

The internet provided an unexpected solution, giving rise to a disrupted identity and a new line of research. Some of the portraits that make up this thematic axis are seen suspended in space, rotating on their own axis.

In each structure holding these portraits, we see two representations of the same figure, connected by their back faces and looking toward opposite ends. Just like the god Janus in Roman culture, who appears, for example, in classical sculpture with a double face, one looking toward the past, and the other toward the future. In this representation of the god Janus, I find a parallel with us, who constantly look from the present toward the past and the future.

Portrait and geometry.

“Geometry is present throughout nature, in the structure of all things, in every atom, molecule, and galaxy, but it also lives within us.” Since ancient times, great civilizations have combined the principles of geometry with numbers and specific proportions to create their worldview, erect buildings and monuments, and replicate the patterns of nature. It is said that every natural pattern of growth or movement can be traced back to one or more geometric forms, which, furthermore, due to the characteristics of the laws governing the universe, are fractal.

Understanding how fractals work makes more sense when we associate them with the well-known Hermetic Law: "As above, so below, and as within, so without." A fractal explains the macro and micro as "an indivisible whole in the universe." The relationship between numerology and sacred geometry lies in the idea that numbers and geometric shapes possess symbolic and energetic meanings and are inseparable.

It is not known whether mathematics or geometry came first; what is understood is that one cannot exist without the other. The portraits that comprise this thematic axis appear surrounded or wrapped in geometric structures or shapes. Every form that floats or we see anchored above these portraits are thoughts, or representations of that infinite set of vertical and horizontal lines, angles, circles, curves, etc., all the basic forms that surround us wherever we are. Without realizing it, we coexist with fractals of sacred geometry all the time.

We are a number.

Numbers, elements so simple that they appeared in shepherds' bags 30,000 years ago to help them count their sheep, have become, over time, the hallmark of human identity. Numbers have come to replace our identity, determining our existence. Their inventors are not to blame for this usurpation, because the Sumerians and Babylonians were unaware of the consequences of what they were doing when they babbled the numerical alphabet that has supplanted our names. Neither body, nor soul, nor essence, nor reason. We are simply numbers.

The system is responsible for listing our shoes, clothes, home, car, and grave. At birth, we are assigned a first number, a different one on our birth certificates. At school, we are given another, but specifically, we are assigned a Citizen's number, a Taxpayer's number, and a Worker's number. Bank account numbers, electronic database numbers, financial and commercial cards, postal and telephone districts. Access codes for financial controls, email addresses, etc.

Our name is a decorative accessory that adorns the number that identifies us. At the tax office, the police station, the hospital, the library, at the border, in the store, the supermarket—in all these cases, we will always be asked for a previously assigned number. We have been many numbers in lines. The countless numbers assigned to us throughout our lives remain in our memories. Today, numbers no longer appear alone; we now find them accompanied by symbols brought about by modernity: barcodes, created in 1948 by Bernard Silver and Norman Woodland, students at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Later, QR codes appeared as an evolution of barcodes, created in Japan by Masahiro Hara in 1994.

We use QR codes to share passwords, get contact information, view a restaurant menu, pay, access a website, view images, and much more. QR codes have been standardized for years and have been widely accepted for their ease of use. During their post-pandemic boom, many businesses decided to replace paper with this information-storing module.

Both barcodes and QR codes are part of our corporate identity, key to identification, logistics, and traceability. If we think about every card we carry in our wallet or the documentation we currently receive, we'll find these two modern ways of condensing information and serving as identification resources.

The portraits in this thematic section feature examples of these now-famous codes. Two of the portraits depicting the creators of barcodes feature the same code, in the form of rings of varying diameters, along with numbers. This was the first barcode designed by Silver and Woodland, and is the precursor to the famous bar codes. The father of QR codes is also portrayed carrying a QR code that protects his name.

The rest of the portraits are enhanced with barcodes, whose meanings are read at the bottom. And a QR portrait reaffirms that "We are a number."

Roger Sanguino.

DDR ART GALLERY.